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From rjg@d31rz0.Stanford.EDU Thu Jun 27 08:09:56 PDT 1996
Article: 46231 of alt.revisionism
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From: rjg@d31rz0.Stanford.EDU (Richard J. Green)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: 'They don't call Auschwitz the extermination camp for nothing!'
Date: 23 Jun 1996 21:04:07 -0700
Organization: Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
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Vidal-Naquet comments on Kremer's testimony [1]:
...
George Wellers has observed that Faurisson made made use
of Kremer's confession in 1947 to interpret the notations
in his diary for October 18, 1942 as though they referred to
only three evacuations, but that he pretended to be unaware
that on the same day in 1947 Kremer spoke of the gas chambers
at Auschwitz (_Le Monde_, February 21, 1979; _Verite, pp. 332-
334). To which Faurisson retorted that he retained from
Kremer's confession only what was credible, and not what was
not. Since Kremer had once said that gas chambers were
reopened "a moment" after the death of the victims, his
statement constitutes, he tells us gravely, "a flagrant
physical impossibility" (Verite, p.112).
Let us leave aside what, in this interpretation, is to be
attributed to pedantry or subjectivity (what is a _moment_?).
It comes up against a series of absolutely decisive objections:
1. There is not a single passage in the _Diary_ in which
Kremer speaks of typhus in connection with "special actions."
2. One is hard put to understand why typhus outbreaks would
necessarily coincide with arrivals form outside the camp.
(Was there at the time a typhus epidemic in Holland?)
3. It is hard to understand why an execution, a commonplace
occurrence for Kremer, and also everything concerning typhus,
should suddenly take on a tragic aspect when connected with a
special action.
4. The fact that Auschwitz was the _Lager der Vernichtung_
has no relationship to typhus epidemics. Indeed, Faurisson,
who is so concerned with precision when it comes to translation,
did not perceive that Kremer in speaking of Typhus did not use
the verb _vernichten_. He wrote on October 3: "In
Auschwitz whole streets have been stricken down by typhus (
In Auschwitz liegen ganze Strassenzu"ge an Typhus darnieder)."
The difference in verbs (darniederliegen instead of vernichten)
is significant, and Faurisson allowed himself to be fooled by
the translation of the Polish publisher. Finally, a detail
which I mention to show how Faurisson reads texts: it is false
that Kremer had typhus and that what he called the Auschwitz
illness is typhus. The indications in the diary for
September 3, 4, and 14, show clearly that the Auschwitz
illness is diarrhea with a moderate fever (37.8 degrees C on
September 14). Kremer was, in fact, vaccinated against
(exanthematic) typhus and typhoid fever. Faurisson's
interpretation is thus not admissable, and the explanation-
so dear to those revisionists, like Butz, prepared to admit
that there was a lot of dying at Auschwitz-of the death rates
at Aushwitz by typhus stands condemned along with it.
...
[1] Pierre Vidal-Naquet, _Assassins of Memory_, translated by
Jeffrey Mehlman, Columbia University Press: New York (1992).
pp. 48-50
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Richard J. Green Dept. of Chemistry
rjg@lyman.Stanford.EDU Stanford University
http://www-leland.Stanford.EDU/~redcloud Stanford, CA 94305-5080
"Remember the days of yore,
"Learn the lessons of the generation that came before you."
-Deuteronomy 32:7

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